| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"nkdatta8839" |
| Date: |
09 Oct 2004 03:04:37 AM |
| Object: |
What The Pakistan Dictator Knew About Nuke Peddling And When |
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20041004-015707-2087r.htm
The Washington Times
October 04, 2004
Iran, Pakistan and nukes
By Wilson John
The International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA) is currently
investigating Iran's nuclear program, especially the possibility that
Pakistan helped it with substantial transfers of technology and
materials in the past. There has been no conclusive evidence so far,
except for a piece of evidence that Pakistan had supplied designs for
an advanced centrifuge called P-2 to Iran in 1995. There is a reason
why the IAEA is finding it difficult to discover the nuclear trail in
Iran. The agency is not looking in the right places, for instance in
Pakistan. What it needs to do is not complicated, either: It has to
begin by questioning A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who
has been persuaded to go into hiding by Islamabad following
disclosures early this year that he was the kingpin in a worldwide
network of nuclear smugglers.
Mr. Khan has been actively involved in transferring nuclear
technology and material to Iran since the early 1990s. Although the
proliferation activities were clandestine, there is substantial
evidence that the Pakistani establishment — especially its external
intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence — not only knew of
the activities but assisted in the smuggling. Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani,
the ISI chief in the early 1990s, was aware of Mr. Khan's travels to
Iran in 1991 and 1992. Iran was quite willing to pay heavily for a
nuclear gateway with Pakistan. Tehran had offered $3.2 billion to
finance Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program in exchange for the
transfer of nuclear technology, as reported in the Pakistan daily
newspaper Dawn on Dec. 20, 1994.
The Pakistan-Iran nuclear connection existed since the time of
Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who had approved unpublicized cooperation
between the two nations in the nuclear field in 1987. The cooperation
was specifically limited to nonmilitary spheres. A respected Pakistani
English-language daily published in Islamabad, the News, quoted a
retired nuclear scientist: "Just before his death in 1988 when I told
Zia about Iran's growing interest in non-peaceful nuclear matters, he
asked me to play around but not to yield anything substantial at any
cost." In fact, many believe that not only Gen. Durrani but his
superior, Gen. Aslam Beg, then the army chief of staff, were also
deeply involved in the clandestine nuclear deals with Iran.
Gen. Beg, according to a former Pakistan cabinet minister,
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, had negotiated with Iran for a nuclear deal.
Gen. Beg bragged that "Iran is willing to give whatever it takes, $6
billion, $10 billion. We can sell the bomb to Iran at any price." A
former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Robert Oakley, has also referred
to a conversation with Gen. Beg during which the latter said he was
discussing nuclear cooperation with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Officially Pakistan has always denied having any cooperation with
Iran in the nuclear weapons program. But large sums of unaccounted
money were deposited in the personal accounts of at least two
Pakistani scientists for clandestine deals with Iran. One of them was
Muhammad Farooq, a centrifuge expert, who traveled to Iran and Libya
on behalf of Mr. Khan, and was ironically the key source of
information against Mr. Khan when U.S. and Pakistani intelligence
officials debriefed him in November. One of the startling disclosures
made by Mr. Farooq was about Mr. Khan's financial skullduggery.
Investigations have since revealed that the scientists maintained
secret bank accounts in Dubai where millions of dollars were
deposited. Noman Shah, Mr. Khan's estranged son-in-law, operated one
of the main Dubai-based front companies used by the Khan network. It
was Mr. Shah who set up a supplier firm for Mr. Khan in Dubai and
worked closely with his father-in-law until he divorced Mr. Khan's
daughter Dina after four years of marriage in 1994. Several nuclear
and missile deals signed by the Khan Research Laboratory (KRL),
including transactions with Iran, were routed through Mr. Shah.
More evidence of Mr. Khan's Iran link is an Islamabadbusinessman
named Aizaz Jaffri. In December, Mr. Jaffri reportedly flew to Iran
after three employees of the KRL were detained for questioning
following the disclosures about Mr. Khan. Officials suspect that Mr.
Jaffri's responsibility on the Iran trip was to find out how much the
Iranians had told the IAEA officials about Pakistan's involvement in
their nuclear-weapons program. Mr. Jaffri was an intermediary between
Mr. Khan and his network. The former used to work for Pakistan's
National Development Corporation, a state enterprise, before he joined
Mr. Khan's network and began acting as a front man for dozens of
businesses established by him.
An intriguing fact is Mr. Jaffri's reported association with the
state-owned China North Industries Corporation, or Norinco, which is
collaborating with Pakistan on missile and weapons development and
production. One link that has emerged in the recent investigations was
that Norinco and Mr. Khan's brother Qayuum have a stake in a Chinese
restaurant in Islamabad partly owned by Mr. Jaffri two years ago. Is
there a Chinese connection to nuclear collaboration between Iran and
Pakistan?
================================================================================
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63944-2004Sep30.html
Washington Post
Friday, October 1, 2004; Page A10
Few Factual Errors, but Truth Got Stretched at Times
By Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus
...... In a fierce debate over nuclear proliferation, Bush asserted:
"Libya has disarmed. The A.Q. Khan network has been brought to
justice." He was referring to a nuclear smuggling ring based in
Pakistan.
But many experts also credit the patient diplomacy started in the
Clinton administration for persuading Libya to cooperate. Moreover,
Khan, a national hero in Pakistan, was pardoned by President Pervez
Musharraf, and not a single person involved in his network has been
prosecuted anywhere. Yesterday, in fact, the International Atomic
Energy Agency complained that it had been prevented from interviewing
Khan. .....
================================================================================
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0409300188sep30,1,3209937.story
Chicago Tribune
September 30, 2004
EDITORIAL
Squeezing a nuclear outlaw
The hunt for Osama bin Laden was Topic 1 last week when Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf met with President Bush at the White House.
The two leaders discussed other things, including Musharraf's efforts
to retain his post as chief of the army. But apparently one thing that
failed to rank high on the agenda was the threat of terrorists
acquiring nuclear weapons.
To be specific, Bush reportedly didn't even try to persuade Musharraf
to allow U.S. or International Atomic Energy Agency officials a crack
at interviewing Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan's
nuclear program and one of the world's most brazen nuclear profiteers.
Earlier this year, Khan's underground nuclear bazaar--dubbed the
"nuclear Wal-Mart" by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei--was uncloaked,
solving the mystery of how North Korea, Iran and Libya acquired so
much nuclear technology so fast. The answer: Khan's network sold it to
them.
Khan, revered in his homeland as the father of the Pakistan bomb,
confessed and was instantly pardoned by Musharraf. The Pakistan
president apparently feared that his grip on power could be undermined
by a long investigation and trial of a national hero. Musharraf
insisted that Khan acted without government knowledge, a claim that is
difficult if not impossible to believe.
At the time of Khan's confession, ElBaradei raised alarms, saying Khan
was "the tip of an iceberg" in an illicit nuclear supply network with
connections in many countries. "We need to know who supplied what,
when, to whom," ElBaradei said.
Some eight months later, though, no one has those answers because
Pakistan has refused to make Khan available to outside investigators,
either from the U.S. or the IAEA. The United States, fearing that more
pressure could destabilize a crucial ally in the war on terror, hasn't
pressed the case.
That is a colossal mistake that could have devastating repercussions.
Some American intelligence officials reportedly suspect that Pakistan
is withholding information that may be embarrassing or that it is no
longer pushing Khan to spill all his secrets. In a recent interview
with The New York Times, Musharraf asserted that the United States had
never asked to question Khan. If that's true, the reason is
transparent: They knew the request would be rejected. Musharraf said
as much. If American officials had asked, he said, "we wouldn't let
them," because "that would show a lack of trust in ourselves. I mean,
we must trust our own agencies."
But how much trust can the U.S. and the rest of the world have in a
regime that so quickly pardons a nuclear outlaw? How much trust can
there be for a regime that denies any of its officials--even in its
most powerful institution, the army--knew anything about Khan's
dealings?
The world may never know exactly who bought from Khan's network. And
that is intolerable.
Musharraf said he was certain that Khan's network had been shut down.
But Musharraf also admitted that he could not be sure that Pakistani
investigators had unearthed all the customers and transactions of the
network stretching back probably over a decade or more. David
Albright, a former IAEA weapons inspector, says Pakistan may not push
Khan too hard because that could expose the illicit networks that the
country still uses to buy nuclear technology.
Iran is threatening to go nuclear. North Korea has an active nuclear
weapons program. Both were fed by Khan's network. Either of those
countries could potentially become a source of nuclear materials or
weapons for Al Qaeda, which has declared its intent to acquire and use
nuclear weapons. And others may be harboring nuclear ambitions. In
July, the Associated Press reported Syria and Saudi Arabia were being
investigated as possible Khan network clients.
If the world is to avert more nasty surprises, the Khan network must
be fully exposed and completely unraveled.
Bush can't let Musharraf off the hook. International authorities need
to know everything Khan knows. Without direct access to Khan, the
world can have little confidence that his entire network is being
rolled up, that black marketers across the world are being arrested
and brought to justice. In many ways, that's as crucial to the war on
terror as finding bin Laden.
================================================================================
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2004/October/subcontinent_October21.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=
The Khaleej Times, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
1 October 2004
‘Pakistan refuses to let IAEA quiz Qadir'
(AFP)
VIENNA — Pakistan has refused to let the UN atomic agency directly
interview disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadir Khan, father of
Pakistan's atomic bomb and ringleader of a smuggling network that
supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea with sensitive nuclear
technology, an agency spokesman said yesterday.
"The Pakistanis have made it clear that while they will provide the
IAEA all information available to them, direct access to Mr Khan would
not be possible," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
It was the first time the IAEA has admitted that Pakistan is refusing
to let the agency see Khan, Gwozdecky said.
The IAEA has been asking Pakistan regularly to help it investigate the
international black market run by Khan, who confessed last February to
passing on nuclear secrets.
"From the beginning, we have made it clear to the Pakistani
authorities that we would like the maximum amount of information on
the Khan network, including access to any person with such knowledge,"
Gwozdecky said.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said in Teheran in
August that his country was cooperating with the IAEA probe into
Iran's suspect nuclear programme but ruled out allowing inspectors
into Pakistan as part of the crucial investigation.
He pointed out that Pakistan was not a signatory of the NPT (nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty), which mandates the IAEA to monitor
compliance with international atomic safeguards.
IAEA inspectors have found traces of highly-enriched uranium inside
Iran, leading to suspicions that Iran has been trying to produce
nuclear bombs and not just atomic energy as it insists.
But Teheran maintains the traces found their way into the country on
equipment bought from Khan's black market network.
Pakistan's cooperation with the probe is crucial in resolving
outstanding questions related to Iran's bid to generate nuclear
energy, seen by the United States as a cover for weapons development.
The IAEA wants to take so-called "environmental samples" from Pakistan
to compare them with those found in Iran — crucial in verifying
Teheran's claims.
Pakistan has supplied results from sampling it has conducted itself,
but has not allowed IAEA inspectors into the country to do their own
sampling, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei said in a report
earlier this month.
ElBaradei said the IAEA needed results from its own testing to be able
to draw definitive conclusions.
================================================================================
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 01, 2004 12:29:06 PM ]
IAEA nails Musharraf's nuke lies
WASHINGTON: Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf brazenly lied
that the world community had not asked for access to nuclear
proliferator A Q Khan, fresh disclosures by the International Atomic
Energy Agency has indicated.
Officials of the IAEA on Thursday publicly rebutted Musharraf's claim
in a television interview last week that "nobody" had asked to
question Khan in connection with the spread of nuclear technology and
materials.
"We have not been allowed by Pakistan to talk to the man," Mohammed El
Baradei, the
Director-General of the Agency said in a BBC interview aired on
Thursday.
Asked why then Musharraf had made such a statement, El Baradei said:
"I can tell my Pakistani friends that I will be happy to send a team
tomorrow to talk to him if we can, absolutely."
In an interview with ABC World News in New York last week, Musharraf
was explicitly asked by anchor Peter Jennings why he had not made Khan
available to the US and IAEA for questioning.
"Nobody has asked, number one," Musharraf blustered, before bluntly
saying that even if Pakistan was asked it would not make him available
"because we have good interrogators" and because "it undermines our
own capability." Musharraf also claimed to have "shared all the
information that we have."
But the IAEA sees it differently. Although Pakistan had supplied
information from the tests it had conducted, El Baradei said the IAEA
needed results from its own testing to be able to draw definitive
conclusions.
The IAEA is hamstrung by the reluctance on part of the US, which
claims to be acting against nuclear proliferation, to back its demand
to access Khan. Several American analysts have suggested that Bush is
not pushing Pakistan on the Khan issue because he hopes Musharraf will
deliver Osama bin Laden before the November 2 election to ensure him a
second term.
Some commentators have gone so far as to warn that if the United
States is attacked with nuclear weapons, its origins would most likely
be Pakistan.
Describing US policy on Pakistan's proliferation as a "colossal
mistake that could have devastating repercussions," the Chicago
Tribune said in an editorial this week that "Bush can't let Musharraf
off the hook. International authorities need to know everything Khan
knows. In many ways, that's as crucial to the war on terror as finding
Bin Laden." Several other American newspapers have expressed similar
views.
But US officials have reacted to such concerns with total sang-froid,
acknowledging that Washington has not asked for Khan, but not
explaining why. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard
Armitage have been Musharraf's biggest apologists amid a discredited
US policy widely seen as having trumped up phony charges against Iraq
while ignoring Pakistan's proliferation.
Several analysts have surmised that Bush is so intent on winning a
second term with Musharraf's help that he is willing to wink at both
Pakistan's nuclear proliferation and the issue of democracy in the
country, the very grounds on which he carried the United States to war
against Iraq.
During the first Presidential debate on Thursday, Bush agreed with
Democratic contender John Kerry that nuclear proliferation was the
number one US concern, and went on to claim that Khan had been brought
to justice.
Asked on CNN how the President could make such a claim when Musharraf
had actually pardoned Khan, a Bush aide clarified that the President
had meant Khan ability to function had been impaired and went on to
list other non-proliferation initiatives taken by the administration.
But the IAEA observations has led several commentators to point out
that the Bush administration has ignored the more dangerous
proliferation involving Pakistan, while taking to US to war over
phantom WMD in Iraq --a point that is lost on the administration.
================================================================================
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| Title: Re: What The Pakistan Dictator Knew About Nuke Peddling And When |
08 Dec 2004 02:32:40 AM |
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[Musharraf denied "200%" that the Pakistani government or military knew
that Khan was making nuclear weapons information available to other
nations ..... Analysts have raised doubts about whether Musharraf is
keeping Khan from speaking to international investigators for fear the
scientist might reveal the extent to which some of his activities may
have been condoned by the Pakistani military]
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-musharraf6dec06,1,5584714.story?coll=la-headlines-world
LA Times
December 6, 2004
Musharraf Scorns Nuclear Probe
By Sonni Efron, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday defended
his decision not to allow international investigators to interrogate
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist accused of peddling nuclear
secrets around the world.
Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday, Musharraf said the
requests from United Nations nuclear inspectors indicated a lack of
trust in Pakistan, portraying the issue as a matter of national pride.
President Bush met with Musharraf on Saturday and urged the Pakistani
military man to ensure that all information about the Khan network's
nuclear proliferation be turned over to the Americans. Musharraf
promised to do so.
But the White House did not ask for direct access to Khan -
apparently in deference to Pakistani sensitivities about a man who, as
the father of the country's atomic bomb, had been considered a hero.
However, the International Atomic Energy Agency still wants to
interview Khan, whom Musharraf has pardoned, and Khan's assistant, who
is held in Malaysia.
Lacking such cooperation, officials view it as unlikely that Khan's
activities will ever be fully unraveled, The Times reported Sunday.
Musharraf told CNN that Pakistan could do the best job interrogating
Khan.
"It shows a lack of trust in us," Musharraf said. "We can question him
the best, and then there is ... a domestic sensitivity. This man is a
hero for the Pakistanis, and there is a sensitivity that maybe the
world wants to intervene in our nuclear program, which nobody wants....
It is a pride of the nation."
Analysts have raised doubts about whether Musharraf is keeping Khan
from speaking to international investigators for fear the scientist
might reveal the extent to which some of his activities may have been
condoned by the Pakistani military.
Musharraf denied "200%" that the Pakistani government or military knew
that Khan was making nuclear weapons information available to other
nations.
The Pakistani leader, a key Bush administration ally in its war on
terrorism, also said that, in hindsight, the U.S. decision to invade
Iraq was a mistake.
"We have landed ourselves in more trouble," he said.
There was no new information on where Osama bin Laden could be,
Musharraf said, but he suggested that Al Qaeda's command structure in
Pakistan has been broken by recent military operations aimed at
rousting militants from tribal areas along the Afghan border.
In Pakistan, both pro-government and opposition parties staged large
street demonstrations coinciding with Musharraf's foreign tour.
In the central city of Multan, a coalition of six Islamic parties,
Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, held a rally and vowed to force Musharraf to
quit as army chief if he reneged on his promise to do so voluntarily by
year's end, according to Reuters.
Loosening the military's control over politics has been a key goal of
the Pakistani democracy movement, but the parliament recently passed a
law that would allow Musharraf to keep the top army job as well as the
presidency.
======================================================
[Pakistan has disclosed to the United States the activities that Khan
engaged in without authorization from his handlers, Tellis said. "But
Musharraf for obvious institutional reasons has not come clean on the
Pakistani military's complicity in what A.Q. Khan was doing, and we
have not pushed him on that because it is a bridge too far."]
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-musharaf5dec05,1,937378.story
LA Times
December 6, 2004
...... A senior administration official, meanwhile, downplayed U.S.
frustration over the South Asian nation's refusal to allow Americans to
interrogate Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan about his nuclear
proliferation activities.
The White House also did not publicly mention the failure of Musharraf
and the U.S. to catch Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, nor did it chide
the Pakistani president for his decision to keep his post as army
chief, a move widely criticized as undermining democracy in Pakistan.
......
Bush, sitting beside Musharraf in the Oval Office after their 55-minute
meeting, emphasized his commitment to help foster the creation of a
Palestinian state that would live in peace with Israel. Muslim leaders,
as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have said progress on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essential to defusing the anger that
helps fuel Islamic extremism.
Bush called for "a world effort to help the Palestinians develop a
state that is truly free: one that's got an independent judiciary; one
that's got a civil society; one that's got the capacity to fight off
the terrorists; one that allows for dissent; one in which people can
vote, and President Musharraf can play a big role in helping achieve
that objective."
Critics noted that most of those criteria were not met in Pakistan.
Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup, purged the Supreme Court,
arbitrarily amended the constitution and has never stood for election
in a contested campaign, said Husain Haqqani, a former advisor to
Pakistani prime ministers who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. .....
...... Pakistan has disclosed to the United States the activities that
Khan engaged in without authorization from his handlers, Tellis said.
"But Musharraf for obvious institutional reasons has not come clean on
the Pakistani military's complicity in what A.Q. Khan was doing, and we
have not pushed him on that because it is a bridge too far."
======================================================
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer7dec07,1,2202089.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
LA Times
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
Pakistan and the True WMD Threat
By Robert Scheer
If it had been even a primitive nuclear weapon that hit the World Trade
Center three years ago, hundreds of thousands of people would have died
instead of fewer than 3,000, and the free society we enjoy almost
certainly would have been a casualty as well. In the shock of that
moment, the administration probably would have created a national
network of detention camps for suspected terrorists, and military
retaliation might have included the launch of nuclear missiles with the
capability of killing millions. All of which is exactly why it was so
terrifying to read in an investigative article in the Los Angeles Times
on Saturday that our "allies" in Pakistan, who have done so much to
spread nuclear weapons technology in recent years, are still capable of
doing so.
"Senior investigators said they were especially worried that dangerous
elements of the illicit network of manufacturers and suppliers would
remain undetected and capable of resuming operations once international
pressures eased," The Times reported. The article dissected the
inability of investigators worldwide to fully penetrate the illicit
nuclear weapons bazaar, which was run until last year by Pakistan's top
nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Khan is currently under the protection of Pakistan's military dictator,
President Pervez Musharraf, the same man who pardoned Khan and refuses
to allow foreign investigators to speak with him. Yet it was Musharraf
whom President Bush spent the weekend praising and accommodating.
As The Times article made clear, what "officials call the world's worst
case of nuclear proliferation" - in which sophisticated nuclear
technology was supplied to Libya, Iran and other rogue nations -
never would have been possible without the support of the Pakistani
military. This is the same complex and powerful organization that made
Pakistan a dictatorship in a 1999 coup by Musharraf. Yet within two
years of this coup, Bush dropped U.S. sanctions against Pakistan,
showing clear disregard for international nonproliferation restraints.
The rationale then and now was Pakistan's alleged support in the "war
on terrorism" after 9/11.
And despite the exposure of the Khan black market ring, nothing has
changed: In a White House meeting Friday, Bush honored Musharraf -
who since seizing power has purged his country's Supreme Court and
rewritten its constitution - as a "courageous leader."
The administration again hastened to explain that Musharraf was vital
in the three-year effort to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," as
Bush frequently has proclaimed. How embarrassing then, when hours later
Musharraf conceded in a Washington Post interview that Bin Laden's
trail had grown completely cold but that the arch-terrorist is still
very much alive and functioning.
Musharraf complained that attempts to pin down Bin Laden and his Al
Qaeda operatives had been seriously undermined by what he politely
called "voids" in U.S. troop commitments to the area, which are equal
to a mere 15% of the U.S. forces in Iraq. The U.S. strategy instead has
been to rely on Pakistan's military to trap Bin Laden, a dependence
that Bush administration officials have cited while refusing to
pressure for access to Khan.
Musharraf complains that calls for international access to Khan show "a
lack of trust" in Pakistan, but his real problem is the scientist's
enormous popularity as the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb program.
Khan "has been a hero for the masses," said the general who has
survived several assassination attempts and faces the possibility of a
revolt if he tilts too far toward the West.
Meanwhile, Bush is so eager to cater to Musharraf that he is even
championing the dictator as key to the creation of a democratic
Palestinian state "that is truly free. One that's got an independent
judiciary; one that's got a civil society; one that's got the capacity
to fight off the terrorists; one that allows for dissent; one in which
people can vote. And President Musharraf can play a big role in helping
achieve that objective."
What balderdash. None of those conditions of a free society exist in
Pakistan, nor are they likely any time soon in U.S.-occupied Iraq.
Yet while we chase the chimera of democratizing the Islamic world
through the use of force, the true cost of this crusade can be measured
by our indifference to our original justification of the Iraq invasion:
stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
And there's no margin for error here. Next time the terrorists could
take Manhattan and a whole lot more.
======================================================
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16 Jan 2005 02:34:01 AM |
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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-pakistan9jan09,1,3654315.story
LA Times
January 9, 2005
EDITORIAL
Just Another General
On Sept. 11, 2001, the main protector of the Taliban - and Al Qaeda
- outside Afghanistan was the government of next-door Pakistan. But
by the next day, President Pervez Musharraf had responded to
Washington's "with us or against us" ultimatum by throwing in with the
United States. Sort of.
Musharraf then had been running Pakistan for two years, having seized
power in a coup. After the 9/11 attacks he promised to step down as
army chief of staff while keeping his presidential post, a promise he
repeated as each year dawned. But when 2005 arrived, there was the
president on television, telling the nation he just couldn't take off
the uniform yet: He needed to keep his army post so he could continue
fighting terrorism.
That argument is not totally specious - Musharraf has twice survived
assassination attempts by Islamic fundamentalists - but unless he
does a far better job of using his combined civilian and military posts
to improve Pakistan's economy, educational system and political
institutions, he'll be just the latest in the country's dismal list of
generals who seized power and refused to let go.
Musharraf has rigged elections, proclaimed himself president and
constantly insisted to Washington that it's him or terrorism. After
turning to hard-line Islamic parties for support, he is now trying to
use the secular Pakistan People's Party to undercut the Islamists.
The best thing for Pakistan now would be for him to let the PPP's
leader, Benazir Bhutto, back into the country and let her party and the
rival but also secular Pakistan Muslim League choose their own
candidates in elections.
When Pakistan promised to help hunt Osama bin Laden and block Al Qaeda
fighters from fleeing across the border with Afghanistan, Washington
rewarded it by ending sanctions and ordering an aid package of up to $3
billion. But the U.S. should insist on value for the money. The Bush
administration should demand that Pakistan establish secular public
primary schools to compete with fundamentalist madrasas that preach
hatred of all religions except Islam.
Musharraf also has stiff-armed Washington in its attempts to talk with
Abdul Qadeer Khan, who helped North Korea, Iran and Libya pursue
nuclear weapons. The general claimed Khan was a "rogue scientist" and
then pardoned him. Musharraf's claim that Khan acted without the
knowledge of top generals and civilian leaders is laughable.
Pakistan has alternated for most of its 57 years of independence
between rule by corrupt civilian governments and by army generals. If
Musharraf does nothing to improve his country, Washington should call
him to account. The U.S. has billions of dollars worth of leverage;
leaving it idle does no one any good.
======================================================
Washington Post
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A20
EDITORIAL
Pakistan's Nuclear Crimes
WHILE WASHINGTON has been debating the failure to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, an extraordinary series of revelations has
confirmed that Pakistan has been guilty of some of the worst crimes of
nuclear weapons proliferation ever committed. For some 15 years it has
been supplying atomic bomb technology to rogue states and sponsors of
terrorism -- and it did so even after President Bush declared that
governments that conducted such transfers could be subject to
preemptive attack by the United States. Under pressure from the United
Nations, Pakistani officials have acknowledged that nuclear designs and
materials were given to Iran, Libya and North Korea, either directly or
through an underground network involving middlemen in Germany and a
secret factory in Malaysia. Officials claim the traffic was conducted
solely by the country's chief weapons scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and
several associates. Hoping to avoid prosecution, Mr. Khan duly
confessed on Pakistani television
yesterday and absolved his government. But the scientist previously
gave investigators a more plausible account: that President Pervez
Musharraf and other senior military leaders approved the deals.
For more than two years the Bush administration has embraced Mr.
Musharraf as a strategic ally and overlooked his suppression of
Pakistani democracy and his coddling of Islamic extremists. Now the
administration must confront the reality that Pakistan's military
leadership has done more to threaten U.S. and global security with
weapons of mass destruction than either al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein.
Were Pakistan not a professed ally of the United States, its behavior
would meet the criteria for preemptive military intervention outlined
in Mr. Bush's national security strategy. He is not contemplating such
action, nor should he be. But the United States must ensure that
Pakistan never again markets its nuclear weapons technology. That will
require more than extracting further promises of good behavior from an
unreliable general.
Mr. Musharraf, who narrowly survived two recent assassination attempts,
has made lots of promises to Washington since Sept. 11, 2001. Most have
not been fulfilled. When asked about Pakistan's commerce with Iran and
North Korea, he either denied that it occurred or implied that he put a
stop to it. But Pakistani military cargo flights to North Korea took
place as late as 2002. Last fall the United States arranged the
interception of a Libya-bound shipment of industrial equipment for
nuclear weapons. It turns out the goods were supplied by the network
connected to Mr. Khan.
Mr. Musharraf can be expected to go on denying responsibility for the
illegal trafficking while promising to stop it. His word should not be
enough. The Bush administration and its allies have insisted that other
nations guilty of illegal nuclear weapons activity, including Iran and
Libya, submit to strict international inspections. Pakistan is not a
signatory to international nuclear arms agreements; no outside
authority regulates its nuclear programs. That should change. If it is
to remain a friend of the United States and receive the billions in aid
promised by the Bush administration, Pakistan should be required to
commit itself formally to stop proliferating -- and the United States
or the United Nations should have the means to verify its compliance.
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| Title: Re: What The Pakistan Dictator Knew About Nuke Peddling And When |
08 Feb 2005 03:05:49 PM |
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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_6-2-2005_pg1_2
The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan
Sunday, February 06, 2005
CIA frustrated by lack of access to Qadeer
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: A congressional hearing was told by a former head of the
CIA that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan "may yet be responsible for millions
and millions of deaths because of what he did".
James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, was testifying this week
before the House Select Intelligence Committee. Asked by Rep John
Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, if it was damaging to the US that
it was not "engaging" with Dr Khan, who may have "distributed
nuclear materials or information around the world," the former CIA
chief replied, "I would have far preferred to have seen AQ Khan and -
some more disclosures about the network and AQ Khan dealt with very
severely. This man may yet be responsible for millions and millions of
deaths because of what he did. But politics is - international politics
is a matter in which one has to make compromises. And President
Musharraf found it, I'm sure, necessary to deal with the matter the
way he did in order to maintain his own position in Pakistan and in
order to take other steps that are in Pakistan's and our mutual
interest. I share the frustration very much, but ..."
The congressman asked if there were "many other AQ Khans are there
out there," and was told by Woolsey, "Well, the world has to hope
there aren't any, but I'm afraid there may be at least one or two
derivative AQ Khans, people who get access in Libya, perhaps, or in
Iran, to some of this technology of capable gas centrifuges, for
example, and then find a way that they can further sell it. Khan
himself probably got this in Europe - in the Netherlands, I believe. So
what you're really worried about, even if there's no other country
that's doing what Pakistan was doing back years ago, is that there
are individuals in, you know, Iran or Korea, other places, that are
figuring out even as we speak ways to sell models of this kind of gas
centrifuge."
Others who testified before the Committee were: Richard Perle, American
Enterprises Institute, Gregory Treverton, Rand Corporation, Michael
Swetnam, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and Kurt Campbell, former
deputy assistant secretary of defence policy.
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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-2-2005_pg1_1
The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan
Monday, February 07, 2005
Khan network still operational: TIME
LAHORE: While the world is focused on a possible showdown over the
Iranian nuclear programme, a recent investigation has revealed that
Pakistan's AQ Khan network played a larger role in helping Tehran and
Pyongyang than had been previously disclosed, TIME magazine reported on
Sunday.
According to US intelligence officials, the magazine said, Dr Khan sold
North Korea much of the necessary material to build a nuclear bomb,
including high-speed centrifuges used to enrich uranium and the
equipment required to manufacture more of them.
They, along with officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), also believe that Iran may have bought the same set of goods
- centrifuges and possibly weapons designs - from Khan in the
mid-1990s. Although the IAEA says it has so far not found any
definitive proof of an Iranian weapons programme, its investigators
have revealed that Tehran privately confirmed at least 13 meetings
(from 1994 to 1999) with representatives of the Khan network.
Many fear that these disclosures represent the tip of the iceberg,
given that the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb travelled the world
for more than a decade, visiting countries in Africa, Central Asia and
the Middle East.
US officials are currently investigating the possibility that Khan's
network sold nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and other Arab
countries, the magazine quotes a Pakistani defence official as saying.
He also confirmed that the US has submitted questions to Khan on
whether North Korea and Iran sold such equipment to third parties.
The report said that although Washington has no concrete evidence that
any of Khan's clients have passed along nuclear technology and
expertise to terrorist groups, they cannot rule out the possibility
that Khan did business with Osama Bin Laden's Qaeda network. US
officials point to the fact that several members of Pakistan's
military and intelligence establishment, which worked closely with Khan
in his role as the government's top nuclear scientist, are known to
sympathise with the Qaeda group.
This fear is compounded by the fact that colleagues close to Khan claim
he was driven by a devout faith and a burning belief that a nexus
existed between returning Islam to its former glory and Muslim nations
acquiring nuclear capability.
The report goes on to say that if Washington discovers that Khan sold
nuclear warhead blueprints to Iran, as he did with Libya, it find
immediate justification to ratchet up its charges that Tehran's
nuclear research has a military purpose.
Indeed, such a US move might even gain acceptance in the international
community given that sources close to the Khan Research Laboratories in
Islamabad have claimed that Khan's illicit network of suppliers and
middlemen is still operational, the magazine reported.
"Nothing has changed," TIME quoted one of Khan's former aides as
saying. "The hardware is still available, and the network hasn't
stopped". Sources close to the lab have also revealed that 16
cylinders of uranium hexafluoride gas, a critical ingredient for
uranium enrichment, are missing from the lab.
According to one Pakistani official, the international community should
be doing more to intercept members of the network. He pointed to the
fact that the Swiss and German governments, among others, have failed
to arrest to arrest individuals implicated by Khan's testimony. The
Khan network has been under CIA investigation since the 1990s.
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| Title: Re: What The Pakistan Dictator Knew About Nuke Peddling And When |
14 Feb 2005 10:42:39 AM |
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=JXDHXWRRER2DTQFIQMFCNAGAVCBQYJVC?xml=/news/2005/02/13/wiran113.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=29712
The Sunday Telegraph, UK
13 February, 2005
Our man sold secrets to Iran, admits Pakistan
By Massoud Ansari in Islamabad
Pakistan has conceded for the first time that Dr A Q Khan, the rogue
nuclear scientist who is under house arrest in Islamabad, passed
secrets and equipment to Iranian officials and is now considered the
"brain" behind the programme that has put Teheran on the brink of
acquiring nuclear weapons.
An investigation by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency,
details of which have been disclosed to The Telegraph, confirmed that
Khan, a hero in Pakistan as the "Father of the Bomb", and his
associates sold nuclear codes, materials, components and plans that
left his "signature" at the core of the Iranian nuclear programme.
The admission came during private talks in Brussels at the end of last
month between European Union officials and senior ministers from
Pakistan and India. The EU officials were told that cooperation between
Teheran and Khan, 68, and associates from his Khan Research
Laboratories began in the mid-1990s and included more than a dozen
meetings over several years.
Most of these meetings were between Mohammad Farooq, a centrifuge
expert from KRL, and Iranians in Karachi, Kuala Lumpur and Teheran.
Pakistani investigators have told the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) that centrifuge drawings acquired by Iran closely
resemble the design of the first-generation Pakistan-1 centrifuge.
Khan also helped the Iranians to set up a secret procurement network
involving companies and middlemen around the world, ISI investigators
found. The IAEA told Pakistani officials that centrifuges they had
discovered at the Doshan Tapeh military base in eastern Teheran closely
resembled the more advanced Pakistan-2 centrifuges.
Apparently motivated by Islamic zeal in addition to financial gain,
Khan, who was arrested in November 2003, devoted more than a decade to
the spreading nuclear technology around the world. With increasing
focus in Washington on a showdown with Iran, Khan's activities are
being viewed with growing alarm.
Pakistan had previously resisted admitting Khan's role in Iran's
nuclear plans for fear of diplomatic repercussions. It remains
reluctant to co-operate fully with either the IAEA or President George
W Bush, who has pressed Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, to
allow the CIA to interrogate Khan.
The IAEA has not yet found conclusive evidence that Iran has a weapons
programme and Teheran claims that it "plans to enrich only to the
levels that are used to generate nuclear fuel". A CIA report, however,
concluded this was a lie.
The ISI found that Khan and his associates had approached some
potential buyers of weapons of mass destruction, including Saddam
Hussein's regime. "Iraqi officials initially agreed but later backed
out because they thought it might be a sting operation or a ploy by the
US to implicate them," said one official.
Pakistani investigators found that Khan's network tried not only to
satisfy existing demand but also to create new markets for their
proliferation activities. "They started working it both ways. They
provided options to those who wanted to buy this sensitive material but
also developed new markets for their wares."
Western diplomats believe that Pakistan is afraid that making Khan
available to the CIA directly would lift the lid on an extensive
network of its army officers loyal to Khan. "This could expose the role
of the Chinese in this international black market, or that of other
countries that Pakistan cannot afford to antagonise," said an official
involved in the investigations.
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